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Sentence

Stand up and raise your heads; your redemption is drawing near. Luke 21:28                                                          

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Collect  

Everlasting God, 

you have taught us that the night is far spent

and the day is at hand:

keep us awake and alert, watching for your 

kingdom, and make us strong in faith,

so that when Christ comes in glory to judge

the earth, we may go out joyfully to greet him;

and, with all your saints, may worship you for

ever; through Jesus Christ our Lord,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy

Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Readings

• Jeremiah 33:14-16
• Psalm 25:1-10
• 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
• Luke 21:25-38

next week

• Malachi 3:1-14
• The Song of Zechariah
• Philippians 1:1-11
• Luke 3:1-16

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A Thought to Ponder

Advent 1 – Luke 21:25-38

“When you see these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.”

Advent begins at the end – the promised return of Christ at the end of time. For the faithful disciple, history is a moving forward, a journey to the fulfillment of God’s reign when God’s Christ will return as Lord of all. We therefore live in a permanent state of Advent: watchfulness, preparation and perseverance as we await the return of the Holy One who has already come.

In his Gospel, Luke depicts our final judgment very simply: “to stand before the Son of Man.” Luke infers that our “judgment” before Christ will be a moment of illuminating truth, when all artifice will melt away, when our rationalisations will fail us, when we will see our holiness and face our failures. But rather than make us tremble, the prospect of standing before Jesus should fill us with hope: that the “shoot of Jesse” comes to redeem us despite ourselves, that, in him, God loves us in our holiest moments and our most glaring sinfulness.  

Jesus calls us to pay attention to the “signs” of God’s Advent presence, to “stand erect and raise our heads” to realize God’s presence in our midst.

The moments we are given in this experience of life are precious and few. God gives us these days in order that we might come to discover him and know him in the love of others and the goodness of this world in anticipation of the next.
Our lives are a continuing Advent in which we make our way to God by creating a road for that journey, a road built of justice, forgiveness and love.            

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Sermon

[cpm-player skin=”device-player-skin” width=”450″ playlist=”true” type=”audio”] [cpm-item file=”https://greenwoodanglican.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/1e6ee-advent-1-c.m4a”%5DAdvent 1 C[/cpm-item] [/cpm-player]

You can read the Pew Sheet here

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